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The Asahi Shimbun

OpinionFriday, August 31, 2007

EDITORIALS

第３種郵便物認可

POINT OF VIEW/ Robert DujarricA post-Iraq America’s implications for JapanHeadline38

Special to The Asahi Shimbun

We do not yet know how America’s Iraq adventure will end. But, as
Republicans defect from U.S. President George W. Bush while the public turns against the war, we can seethat the U.S. occupation has reached
its terminal phase. A “post-Iraq America” is on the horizon, with important
implications for Asia.
To understand what this will entail
we need to grasp the cost of the Iraq
invasion for Asia. Operation Iraqi Freedom, coupled with Washington’s failed
policies toward Iran and the IsraeliArab conflict, has forced the UnitedStates to scale back its ambitions inEast Asia while Southwest Asia consumes a growing share of American
military and political assets.
For example, there are very few U.S.
ground forces available in case war
or the collapse of North Korea wereto require reinforcements on thepeninsula. American soldiers are focusing on counter-insurgency to thedetriment of other war-fighting skills
that are more relevant to East Asia.
Diplomatic resources are being diverted to Iraq to staff the elephantine
U.S. embassy in Baghdad. Recent reports quoted Secretary of State
Condoleezza Rice as ordering that assignments in Iraq be given priority
over all other staffing decisions. Arabic has become the most important
language to learn in U.S. diplomatic

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and intelligence agencies, even though
few would argue that there areenough American officials and analysts who have mastered Japanese,
Korean, and Chinese.
The six-party talks illustrate thisimbalance. They affect America’s keyAsian allies (Japan and South Korea,and indirectly Taiwan), set the tone
for the U.S.-China strategic relationship and are supposed to solve theNorth Korean nuclear crisis while
opening the door to a new Asian security framework.
But while the secretary of state andher top deputies devote all their energy to the Middle East, the six-party talks are handled by an outstanding
but fairly junior assistant secretary.
Neither Bush nor Rice, overwhelmed by Iraq, have seen it fit toaccept invitations to ASEAN-led summits, thus handing China an opportunity to increase its influence in thesefora and depriving Japan of the presence of its American partner.
The United States’ withdrawal from
Iraq will improve its position by extirpating it from a hopeless struggle.
But, for the United States, the catastrophic outcome of the demise of
Saddam Hussein will continue tohaunt the region for years.
First, the burden of sustaining some
sort of regional security system in thePersian Gulf region will continue toswallow large amounts of U.S. resources.

By destroying
theHussein
regime, America
set in motion achain of events
that its withdrawal will mitigate but
not reverse completely. In particular, Iran has been
empowered by thed e s t r u c t i o n o f Robert DujarricBaathist Iraq.
Given that many Americans, Democrats and Republicans alike, support military action against Tehran,the next chapter of U.S. adventurism
in Southwest Asia could be a debilitating—for the United States—clashwith Iran.
Second, the U.S. willingness to intervene overseas might diminish. Unable to distinguish between uselessand useful interventions, Congress,
which blindly supported the Iraq war
for several years, may curtail all foreign commitments, including those toJapan and on the Korean peninsula.
Third, as a reaction to the waste oftaxpayers’ money during the Iraq war,Congress could well cut the U.S. defense budget.
Consequently, Japan will continue
to suffer from a dearth of U.S. commitment to East Asia. China andNorth Korea will take advantage ofthis situation. Fortunately for Tokyo,
Beijing probably does not want toPOINT OF VIEW/ Xxxxxxx Xxxxxxx

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throw the Americans out of the region. A possibly confrontational relationship with Japan without thestabilizing influence of the UnitedStates is not what China needs. Asfor North Korea, poverty and the needfor foreign aid together limit its power.
Nevertheless, the partial eclipse of
American power from Asia calls for
remedial action on Japan’s part. The
most important step now is to set up
a security architecture that takes into account the enfeebled state ofAmerican power.
This in no way means excluding
the United States from Asia, if only
because even a weakened America
remains a very powerful global andregional actor. But it requires thatJapan develop relations with China,
South Korea, Taiwan, and to a lesser
extent ASEAN, Australia and Russia,and if possible North Korea, that will
better serve its needs.
In particular, it is necessary forTokyo to minimize the prominenceof the abductions issue—and Japan’s
understandable hostility toward NorthKorea—for the sake of greater Japanese involvement in the six-party talks
and ancillary discussions about East
Asian security.
Robert Dujarric is the director of theInstitute of Contemporary JapaneseStudies at Temple University Japan inTokyo.